Actor and basketball fan Elliott Gould ripped open the
envelope and made that announcement at the Academy Awards just as he was
supposed to name the winner of the Oscar for Best Film Editing, Monday night,
March 29. Then the world knew what Bobby Knight and his unbeaten Hoosiers
had wrought.

Indiana, 311 in 1975, came back a year later to go
320, routing Michigan in the first NCAA final between members of the same
conference. Kent Benson was the tourney MVP, but the Hoosiers also had Player of
the Year Scott May, Quinn Buckner and Bobby Wilkersonall of whom would
eventually be first round picks in the NBA draft.

Memphis State coach Gene Bartow replaced John Wooden at
UCLA and led the Bruins to their 13th Final Four in the last 15 years. They lost
to Indiana in the semifinals, but beat Rutgers in the consolation game.

Bobby Knight's college coach, Fred Taylor of Ohio State,
retired at the end of the regular season after 18 years. Taylor, who was 35 when
the Buckeyes won their only NCAA title in 1960, led OSU to seven Big Ten titles
and three straight NCAA finals (196062).

By the way, the Best Film Editing Oscar went to Vera Fields
for Jaws.

Poll taken
before NCAA tournament

Before
Tourns

Head
Coach

Final
Record

1

Indiana

270

Bobby Knight

320

2

Marquette

251

Al McGuire

272

3

UNLV

281

Jerry Tarkanian

292

4

Rutgers

280

Tom Young

312

5

UCLA

243

Gene Bartow

284

6

Alabama

224

C.M. Newton

235

7

Notre Dame

225

Digger Phelps

236

8

North Carolina

253

Dean Smith

254

9

Michigan

216

Johnny Orr

257

10

W. Michigan

242

Eldon Miller

253

11

Maryland

226

Lefty Driesell

same

12

Cincinnati

255

Gale Catlett

256

13

Tennessee

215

Ray Mears

216

14

Missouri

244

Norm Stewart

265

15

Arizona

228

Fred Snowden

249

16

Texas Tech

245

Gerald Myers

256

17

DePaul

198

Ray Meyer

209

18

Virginia

1811

Terry Holland

1812

19

Centenary

225

Larry Little

same

20

Pepperdine

215

Gary Colson

226

Note:
Indiana won the NCAAs and unranked Kentucky (224, Joe B. Hall, 264) won
the NIT.

There was only one college basketball team against which to measure Indiana,
and that was the one in Bob Knight's mind. The team he envisioned was
hard-working, unselfish and perfect in every way. The team he brought to the
1976 Final Four occasionally missed a free throw.

Bobby Knight

The mistake in assessing the Hoosiers was to compare them to their peers, the
other top teams in the nation. Knight, Indiana's coach, did not make that
mistake.

Michigan, Alabama, Marquette, UCLA they were all the same. They were just
opponents, and imperfect ones at that. The standards set by Knight were beyond
the capabilities of those teams.

After Indiana defeated powerful St. John's, Alabama and Marquette in the
Mideast Regional to raise its record to 30-0, Knight said the identity of the
next opponent did not concern him.

"Will we be able to play as well as we can? That's what concerns me in
every game," he said. "I don't know that you ever do, but you keep
trying."

No team tried harder than the Hoosiers. They were driven not only by their
coach's demanding expectations, but also by the memory of a painful defeat in
the final game of the Mideast Regional the previous year.

After winning the first 31 games of their 1975 season, the Hoosiers were
stopped by a huge and powerful Kentucky team, 92-90. Indiana began the 1976
season with the goal of winning the NCAA championship in Philadelphia, which had
been selected as the Final Four site in recognition of the U.S. Bicentennial.

Knight had created a team not of individuals, but of components. It was a
team whose ego had been sacrificed for the sake of a mission. The coach demanded
perfection from his players. Perfection, of course, was impossible, but they
gave him the next best thing: Consistency. The Hoosiers' consistency was almost
eerie in its execution.

Indiana's efficiency chilled UCLA in one of the semifinals at the Spectrum.
The Bruins were the defending national champions, but they were returning
without the Wizard, coach John Wooden. Still, Gene Bartow had marshaled UCLA's
considerable talent and guided it to a return engagement against Indiana, which
had humbled the Bruins, 84-64, at the start of the season.

The Bruins were confident of winning the rematch because they had improved so
much in the course of the season. Alas, Indiana had done likewise. The Hoosiers
brushed aside the Bruins, 65-51, with barely a flicker of emotion.

"They're very mechanical," Marques Johnson, UCLA's flamboyant
forward, said after the game. "I'm not saying that in a derogatory sense.
It's a compliment, but they're almost mechanical."

Indeed, during those moments when it functioned at its highest level, Indiana
appeared to be a machine -- a collection of 10 interchangeable legs and arms
setting picks, trapping ballhandlers, whirling closer and closer to the basket
for the best percentage shot available.

Whenever forward Scott May and 6-foot-ll center Kent Benson -- the Hoosiers'
consensus All-Americans -- misfired, another teammate was ready to take over.

Such were the circumstances against UCLA. When Benson drew his second foul
barely 90 seconds into the game while attempting to guard 6-10 consensus
All-American Richard Washington, unheralded forward Tom Abernethy was handed the
assignment.

Not only did Abernethy force the Bruins' primary offensive threat out to the
perimeter, but he also scored 14 points and grabbed six rebounds. Other unlikely
heroes included 6-7 guard/forward Bobby Wilkerson, who had an astonishing 19
rebounds and seven assists, and reserve guard Jim Crews, who ran Indiana's delay
game flawlessly over the final seven minutes of play.

To Abernethy, one of four senior starters, it was nothing out of the
ordinary. The Hoosiers took little for granted.

"If you ever think you're infallible," he said, "that's when
you're going to stumble. I don't think there's anything special about this team
that makes us win. We just play hard."

Indiana's opponent in the championship game knew all about the Hoosiers' work
ethic. Michigan, a second-place finisher in the Big Ten Conference, overran
previously undefeated Rutgers, 86-70, in the other semifinal. For the first time
in history, the NCAA title would be contested by two teams representing the same
conference.

The familiarity of the opposition unleashed the practical joker in Knight. It
occurred to him that a congratulatory message might be forthcoming from that
noted Michigan alumnus, Gerald Ford, after the Wolverines' victory over Rutgers.

Knight preyed upon that belief. He placed a call to Michigan coach Johnny
Orr, whom he considered a friend, and introduced himself as the President.

By halftime of the championship game, President Ford might have been tempted
to pick up a phone. Michigan, with swift Rickey Green running a breathtaking
fast break, rushed to a 35-29 lead. Indiana's bid to become the seventh team in
history to complete the season and the NCAA Tournament undefeated was in
jeopardy.

Furthermore, the Hoosiers would be without Wilkerson, their standout
defensive player, for the second half. Early in the game, the senior had stepped
in the path of Wayman Britt as the Michigan forward drove for the basket with
the game tied, 4-4. Britt scored and in his follow-through struck Wilkerson with
an elbow in the vicinity of the left temple.

Wilkerson collapsed. He lay on the court for almost 10 minutes as doctors
attempted to revive him. When those efforts failed, he was placed on a stretcher
and wheeled into the Indiana locker room. He was accompanied by two physicians.

Just before the end of the first half, Wilkerson was led from the locker room
down a corridor 100 feet to a door marked "UCLA," the empty locker
room that had been reserved for Indiana's 31st victim. His legs were wobbly but
his eyes were open, and he held a towel to the left side of his head.

With Wilkerson effectively hidden down the hall, the other Indiana players
carried on because that's what they had been taught to do. May and guard Quinn
Buckner, the senior captain, spoke in the locker room. Then Knight walked in,
his tie loosened, his plaid jacket draped over his shoulder.

"Coach Knight," Buckner said, "always gets the last
word."

The coach demanded 20 minutes of the best basketball Indiana could deliver,
and that's what he got. It didn't matter that Wilkerson, a two-year starter, was
being wheeled to an ambulance that would deliver him to Temple University
Hospital on the other side of town.

"Once you're in the flow of the game," Abernethy said, "you
can't worry about other things. I didn't think it was that bad, so maybe it
didn't hit me as hard. . . . I was just thinking about the game, about what we
had to do."

What the Hoosiers had to do was to nullify Green's sprints. They accomplished
that by scoring nearly every time they had the ball. During a 14-minute stretch
that began less than three minutes into the half, the Hoosiers scored on
virtually every possession.

In the process, Indiana went from four points down (37-33) to 14 points up
(73-59).

"There's just something that happens," May said. "Maybe I'll
get a bucket, and that'll get us going. Or maybe Benny (Kent Benson) will get a
tough rebound that'll get us going. Or maybe Quinn will make a great pass."

It was all of the above against Michigan. May, Benson and Buckner combined
for 36 of Indiana's first 38 points in the second half. May, shooting over the
Wolverines' zone, finished the game with 26 points, one more than Benson managed
from inside. Buckner totaled 16 points.

Meanwhile, sophomore Jim Wisman did a remarkable job directing the offense in
Wilkerson's absence, leading the Hoosiers with six assists. Any hopes of a
Michigan comeback were dimmed when 6-7 freshman Phil Hubbard fouled out with
7:27 to play and then Britt fouled out 2 1/2 minutes later.

The result was an 86-68 triumph, an undefeated season, a championship. Knight
replaced Buckner with 44 seconds left and the two men hugged. With 12 seconds to
play, May and Benson were removed and all 17,540 fans -- even the Michigan
supporters -- stood and applauded. May hopped into Buckner's arms and they
shouted above the din, "Four years, man!"

Wilkerson, who had worked three years for that goal after being ineligible as
a freshman, heard the news in a hospital bed several miles away. The messenger
was a medical technician, Corlie Stills.

"He didn't ask for the score," Stills said. "I just thought
he'd like to know. He was in a daze. He could understand, I think, but there was
not much of a reaction."

The 21-year-old basketball player, still in his Indiana uniform, lay in the
emergency room undergoing an examination by a neurosurgeon.

"He was knocked unconscious," said Joseph Torg, physician for the
Philadelphia 76ers. "He sustained a moderate concussion. He does not appear
to be in any danger. He is being admitted for observation."

His eyes closed, the player was wheeled upstairs. Knight came to visit after
midnight. The Indiana party flew home without him the next day.

Wilkerson remained in the hospital for an additional 24 hours before being
released. Of all the Indiana players, he was the one who never forgot the night
and never remembered the game.